I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.

If we’re honest, most of us would accept that a bad boss is a little bit like a bad father or a bad husband … you find that he tends to do more good than harm. He might be a bad boss but at least he’s employing someone while he is in fact a boss.

I want to make it clear that I do not judge or condemn any woman who has had an abortion, but every abortion is a tragedy and up to 100,000 abortions a year is this generation's legacy of unutterable shame.

I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak.

When you are challenging the young, they can come back at you with language of tremendous power and they are no respecters of sacred cows, you know, the young. There's nothing politically correct about the average young Australian when it comes to use of language.

What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up.

I know politicians are going to be judged on everything they say but sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. The statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared scripted remarks.

While I think men and women are equal, they are also different and I think it's inevitable and I don't think it's a bad thing at all that we always have, say, more women doing things like physiotherapy and an enormous number of women simply doing housework

I think I would say to my daughters if they were to ask me this question... it [their virginity] is the greatest gift that you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don't give it to someone lightly, that's what I would say.

We stand for lower, simpler, fairer taxes, not great big new taxes that damage Australia's economy, not great big new taxes that are yet another hit on the cost of living of struggling Australian families.

The Coalition will end the waste, repay the debt, stop the big new taxes and, above all else, stop the boats.

We are Liberals who believe in smaller government, lower taxes, greater freedom.

This government thinks that somehow you can build prosperity with new taxes. No country ever got rich by increasing taxation. No country ever built a strong economy by clobbering itself with tax after tax after tax.

There is one fundamental message that we want to go out from this place to every nook and cranny of our country: There should be no new tax collection without an election.

All of the boats in question were in the Indonesian search and rescue zone and I want the fullest possible cooperation between Indonesia and Australia in places where Indonesia has, if you like, the legal responsibility under the law of the sea, but Australia has more practical capacity to help.

Indonesia is a country for which I have a great deal of respect and personal affection based on my own time in Indonesia. I want nothing, but the best for Indonesia, and I certainly want, Leigh, I certainly want the boats stopped and that is overwhelmingly in the interests of both our countries.

Obviously we have now had a number of very credible leads and there is increasing hope - no more than hope, no more than hope - that we might be on the road to discovering what did happen to this ill-fated aircraft.